Colleen Fava It’s funny how the things we do in life are so revealing about ourselves, who we are and where we come from. They provide opportunities for insights into how we feel about ourselves and what our core values are! I learned some things that I think I subconsciously knew including what I have inherited from my ancestors, all from car shopping.
I had been driving a 16 year-old car and it was falling apart with a rusted frame, clunky sounds, lack of air conditioning and many other issues.
Being a single mother and small business owner, I didn’t have a lot of time. I began to feel overwhelmed with what to do: rent, buy or finance and what type of vehicle – where to start? How was I going to ensure that I was getting the best deal possible?
I harnessed the expertise of a friend who had a business based in the automobile industry. He suggested that I go to the dealerships and sit in each vehicle I was interested in to get a feel for the insides. I walked into each dealership and explained my process (each time they would ask if I wanted to see a salesperson and each time I declined).
All but one dealership respected my request. At the Nissan dealership, the salesperson came right over to make her sales pitch. I tried to interject and tell her about my process and she kept on talking. I was disappointed as the Nissan Rogue was at the top of my list of vehicles. However I left the dealership and took it off of my list.
I quickly narrowed my search to three vehicles – the next step was to test drive. The first dealership I went to was Toyota. The salesperson seemed kind, caring and friendly and after we test drove, I was actually convinced that I was going to buy there. However, this salesperson asked me to wait to meet his boss. My six-year old daughter and I sat at his desk for over ten minutes and when he finally came over, he aggressively pitched his car. I left the building feeling uncomfortable about buying a Toyota.
We went to the Subaru dealership next and the salesperson was so great. She was friendly, knowledgeable, not aggressive at all – however I didn’t love the car.
The third dealership was Honda and their salesperson seemed nice enough. When it came time to test drive, he asked me to get into the passenger seat explaining he was taking me to another parking lot – one that was easier to pull out of. After that test drive, I wasn’t feeling so great about Honda either.
The next day, I emailed each of the sales people. I complimented the woman from Subaru on her skills and professionalism and explained that I didn’t like the car. I emailed the other two sales people and requested costs including taxes before I could make a decision and then I waited.
The Honda sales person came back to me a few hours later and had followed my instructions. The Toyota salesperson came back to me the next day and didn’t include tax in his options. I let them know I needed the weekend to make a decision.
A day later, I received a phone call. The person on the other end of the phone said, “Colleen, how are you?”. There was silence as I had no idea who it was and after a minute, he explained he was from Toyota. I wasn’t sure why he didn’t explain who he was to begin with.
This left just Honda, however I was feeling anxiety about spending so much money and not feeling totally confident with the buying decision. I had to really look at what was going on with me. Okay, the process I explained above was not the greatest. The salespeople were not the best and clearly non-respectful towards me and my needs and boundaries, yet I knew there was more to it.
I sat with how I was feeling and the following came to me:
Self-doubt
Self-worth
Female power
Scarcity
Unfortunately, I think it’s true that women are seen as a target at automobile dealerships. We don’t tend to be as knowledgeable as men so we are more vulnerable. Regardless, I felt this way going into this research and brought this energy into my experience likely compounding the effect into the process. Having to wait for the aggressive male boss, the salesperson driving me to an easier lot, the inappropriate phone call. My friend even recommended I pretend to be married and tell the sales people that I had to review numbers with him before I made a final decision. So self-doubt and lack of worth and female power definitely played a huge role in trying to find a new car.
The biggest one for me though was scarcity.
I began to think about my life and where I was currently at – I had worked in the corporate world for a long time, and left just over a year ago to pursue my dream of becoming a psychotherapist. I was (and still am) in the building stages of my practice and was scared! Guided by my intuition to follow this dream and taking my beautiful daughter with me, I didn’t want to fail. Struggling to manage my financial responsibilities is terrifying!
I sat with this fear and realized just how deep-seated it truly was. There was the fact that I wanted to ensure that I wasn’t overextending myself financially. It went even deeper as I have lived on my own since the age of fifteen and supported myself. I worked two part-time jobs while attending high school. I lived in a horrible, cockroach infested basement apartment and struggled to buy food. I remember wearing the same torn shoes for months. It was embarrassing. I was constantly exhausted and worried about money.
Then I reflected some more and realized that this scarcity consciousness was also inherited by previous generations. Previous generations pass things down, you inherit from them. We lost many of my Ukrainian family members to the potato famine. Even though my Ukrainian grandmother was born in Canada, she often told me stories about how she didn’t have enough to eat growing up. She never wanted to use her new things, always concerned about where her money was going to come from and this never changed in her life. After she died, we found countless items she had never used still in their boxes. Their lives were surrounded with scarcity.
When my Maltese grandparents came to Canada, they had trouble finding work. They had no money to buy my father and his brother coats in the winter time. They almost left Canada that year.
As I became aware of all of this, I began looking at how I had brought this into my life – my obsession with making sure there was always enough food in the cupboards and holding onto things: clothing, furniture and other household items including my old, falling apart car.
Moving forward, how could I change this scarcity consciousness?
I started playing with the idea of replacing scarcity with abundance.
Recently, there was an eclipse of the full moon (and it was also my birthday). I decided to host some friends to a Full Moon and Letting Go ceremony. We all energetically let go of things that we felt were holding us back. Mine was a fear of scarcity.
We also replaced what we let go of with what we wanted to manifest and make room for in our lives. I chose ABUNDANCE!
There was something truly powerful in having people witness this letting go process. Am hopeful it will help in healing my past, present and future.
After all of my new car shopping, a friend took me to a used dealership and I ended up buying a used Nissan Rogue (the car I wanted to buy to begin with). I just picked it up and I couldn’t be happier!
Image featured here is of my Ukrainian grandmother, Anne, as a child.
